Australian Grand Prix analysis – a true drivers’ race

For all the complaining Formula 1 got for the race in Bahrain, the Australian race has firmly put F1 back in the good light. Thanks to the early rain, there was no messy tyre compound changes, no refuelling to worry about, so it was all down to the drivers. They didn’t dissappoint, and we got a brilliant race as a result. Here is the analysis of a great race.

Button’s consistency

Button vs Hamilton, from Lap 8 to Lap 58

Here we can see why Button stayed ahead, even though Hamilton was quicker after his pit stop. On the few laps before Hamilton pitted on Lap 34, his tyres had already degraded, since he was charging through the field. Meanwhile, Button had driven very cleanly and consistently, meaning his tyres were in a good enough state to be used for the rest of the race. Even after Hamilton’s stop, he was only 1 to 1.5 seconds behind, which was nowhere near enough to catch Button up again. The Ferraris were the final step to ensure that Hamilton would be well behind his team-mate. His collision with Webber was the end in a frustrating day for Lewis.

Jenson, meanwhile, showed the form that won him the championship last year. A perfect example is Monaco last year. All of the other drivers struggled with managing the softer tyres, and Button sailed away by managing tyre wear while still mantaining a healthy lead, and took the win easily. The same scenario happened today in Melbourne. By keeping his tyres in check, he could still keep up the pace throughout the race, while others struggled, or were forced to pit again.

Kubica’s different tyre strategy

Kubica on hard tyres as opposed to Massa on softs

While most of the field took on soft tyres after the track dried out on Lap 8, Robert Kubica decided to take the harder compound. From an analysis perspective, it makes little sense, seeing as the soft tyres were lasting most of the race distance. However, by the end, they would be in pieces, whereas the harder compound could keep performing well throughout.

Up to about Lap 42, Massa’s laps were faster than Kubica’s, save a few mistakes and being slowed down by others. However, tyre degradation quickly caught up with him, which meant that he could not catch up with Kubica at the end. Although Robert had an advantage at the start by having one position more, he stayed well ahead of him for the entire race. So, the call for hard tyres went well for Renault, although it is unclear how well the car would have performed with the softs.

Lotus well ahead

Drivers from all 3 of the new teams

For this graph, I have omitted Jarno Trulli and Bruno Senna, since they did not last long enough to contribute to this analysis.

While it is slightly more clustered and harder to read (sorry about that) we can determine that Heikki Kovalainen was definitely the fastest of the new teams today, like I predicted yesterday. Better still, a reliable car meant he made it to the finish only 2 laps down. While he was well off the pace, with a best lap time of 1.33.639, he was consistent, so it was a good finish for them.

Neither Virgin finished, but they weren’t too bad in terms of pace. Timo Glock’s best time was 1.34.240, 6 tenths off Kovalainen’s time, but Lucas di Grassi was another 2.4 seconds behind. He retired on Lap 26 with a hydraulic problem, so that might have been affecting his pace. Timo Glock pulled out with 15 laps to go with a suspension failure at the back left of the car. It is believed that a piece came loose.

HRT did well when you consider they finished a race with 1 driver. While Bruno Senna lasted only 4 laps, Karun Chandhok clung on fot the rest of the race to finish, albeit 5 laps down. His best time of 1.35.045 may seem encouraging, but he constantly made mistakes, and destroyed the floor of the car by running onto the gravel traps repeatedly. Still, a race finish is a step in the right direction, so the next aim must be to get both of their drivers to finish a race.